He slammed the door behind him. It felt so … final. He might never come back. And now she doesn’t know what to do. But she knows where Kit got his temper and that language from – her husband. At a certain stage in the evening, Henry always had that whiff of violence about him.
Oh God – what should she do?
If only Charlotte hadn’t left his phone on the kitchen table that day.
She knew his password – his birthday. He’d never changed it because he’s a simple boy at heart, her son, a romantic boy at heart.
It wasn’t as if she had a plan exactly. But …
She texted the barmaid from his phone: Meet me up the North End. 4pm. I have a BIG surprise for you!
She thought she might offer her money. Pay her off. Or warn her off … who knows.
When she popped round to give Miss Elisabeth their leftover 374venison, she spotted the carving knife in her washing-up bowl. If anything were found missing from Falcon on the changeover day, the inventory would pick up on it; better to be safe than sorry. She’d only intended to take it for protection. The barmaid might go feral.
But it didn’t matter what she had in mind then, because, in the end, she forgot to take it. She might have been a little the worse for wear. Stress.
She’d accidentally texted Charlotte from Kit’s phone. She’d lost track of the time. When she realised almost an hour had passed, she had to rush to meet the barmaid up there.
She grabbed her waterproof and dashed out. The wind was extraordinary. It was only when she was about halfway there she remembered that she’d left the knife back in the kitchen by the bread bin.
But she had a stroke of luck. The builders who’d been working on Tern had scurried inside to shelter because of the weather, and she noticed one of their tool bags had been left just sitting there, wide open on the back of an old golf buggy. She helped herself to a hammer and a screwdriver. She’s not sure why. They just took her fancy.
If it had been a fair fight, the barmaid might have hurt Beatrice – animal instincts, people like her. But Beatrice had surprise on her side.
Hannah was waiting for Kit at the top of the cliffs, looking out to sea like the bloody French Lieutenant’s Woman. Hair whipping around her head like black straw. Fucking witch!
Beatrice crept up on her. Hannah sensed someone was behind her, and whirled round as Beatrice roared, ‘LEAVE MY SON ALONE! 375
And she shrieked, ‘Keep your fucking nose out of our business!’ Beatrice can’t recall exactly what she yelled next, but there was an awful lot of shouting.
She gripped the screwdriver in her left pocket and the hammer in her right. Deep pockets, those waterproofs.
And when she’d had enough – how dare that woman scream and swear at her! Who did she think she was! – she whipped out the hammer, and all of a sudden the barmaid turned, as if she’d seen someone, and Beatrice swung and caught the side of her face by mistake. If she hadn’t struck the first blow, the barmaid would have gone for her, of that she is absolutely sure! It was self-defence.
The shock of the hammer blow made Hannah scream and step back. If only she’d have fallen over the cliff edge then. But she managed to lunge for Beatrice and hit her a couple of times, flailing, calling her all the names under the sun, terrible language, and she grabbed Beatrice’s hair and managed to kick her. Beatrice felt no pain at the time but she was very annoyed.
She felt better when she stabbed her. The barmaid didn’t see the screwdriver coming. She stopped hitting back after that. Three more swift jabs to the side of her ribs.
It was easy really. If the woman had been wearing an oilskin it might have been more difficult, but she only had a cheap windbreaker jacket, poor-quality material, which says it all really.
Beatrice considered one more blow to her repulsive gut, but call her sentimental, she couldn’t, because if there was a baby it would have been partly Kit’s.
The barmaid didn’t scream again. Or if she did it was snatched away by the wind.
The push was easy because she didn’t seem entirely aware 376of what was happening by then. She was staggering. One small push for Beatrice, one giant push for mankind. Ha! How many other men had she saved by disposing of the awful woman?
She was a bloody wrecker, luring men to their deaths on the rocks. She was a bloody siren, and Beatrice could not, would not, let her destroy her boy!
Hannah didn’t fall, rather crumpled in stages – to her knees, her hip, her hand, her elbow. Her head went down last.
The heavens opened. The wind was insane. It spat nails of rain into her face.
But Beatrice had her Pilates to thank for her excellent core control. She was far stronger than she looked. She was far better at standing up on a surfboard than Kit or Henry ever were.
She braced and pushed with her foot, and off the woman went, sprawling over the lip of the cliff. And it might have been all done and dusted then. But it wasn’t. No such luck.
She had hoped to fling her into the sea, but when she looked, the body had somehow become lodged on a ridge below. Beatrice had to scramble down after her. So irritating!
She managed to reach her, careful not to lose her balance, and by pushing and shoving her along with her foot, clinging to the grasses in the crevices of the rocks at the side to keep her balance, she managed to roll the body off the ledge, rolling her around and down, like the Gloucester cheese at the Cooper’s Hill Cheese Roll. Kit did it one year; sprained his wrist the silly boy. Over and over she went. Beatrice laughed. Nerves. Hannah caught her once more, another kick as her leg shot out, but that might not have been voluntary.
And by then they were almost at the blowhole.
Beatrice knelt over her. She was curled into herself like a 377giant foetus, the side of her face ruined, bits missing, splattered with blood and mud. She seemed to focus on the face above her for a second and she cried out. It was such a horrible animal noise that Beatrice smashed the hammer into her teeth, a reflex action to shut her up. Then she hauled her up under her armpits, heavy as a sack of potatoes – not that Beatrice had ever lifted a sack of potatoes – dragged her across the wet rocks the last few inches, and flung her into the mouth of the blowhole.
Of course, just her luck, right at that moment, the sea spumed up so hard she feared the body would be hoisted aloft, the waterspout like that of a giant whale. But she’d gone in. Beatrice peered over the edge just to make sure, but there was no sign of her.
She sat there a good while to get her breath back. The waterspout caught her a couple of times before she galvanised herself to stand. She threw the screwdriver and the hammer and Kit’s phone into the blowhole after her. Then she started to make her way back down.
Then she saw him – the man in the balaclava! God! Her heart lurched and she started running. She couldn’t tell if he’d seen her and she had no way of knowing if he’d seen what had happened.
The rain hurtled against her as she ran, and she slipped a few times, but ploughed on and … she thought GOOD – it will wash all traces of that vile woman off her: her hands, her hair, her cheeks, her coat. A deluge! Almost biblical.
She was barely aware of how she managed to stagger all the way back to Falcon.
She was soaking, freezing by the time she got indoors. She leant against the wall, trembling spasmodically, and attempted 378to arrange her face in case Charlotte was home, but she wasn’t, thank God.
She had a very large double vodka to steady her nerves. She assumes she had quite a few more.
In the morning Kit came.
She had no real idea how bad she looked.
He told her about the attack. Charlotte battered and whisked away to hospital. The man in the balaclava. Awful!
Useful.
The police interviewed Beatrice. Why wouldn’t they believe the same man had attacked her too? Shock is convenient – details slip away. What other explanation could there be?
When her coat had dried, before Kit came in the morning, she has a vague recollection of ramming the pink waterproof into the very bottom of her supply box. And she forgot about it. She only thought of it once she’d arrived on the mainland. She should have thrown it into the sea. Too late then. No one would seek it out, surely. Her DNA would still be on it. But …
No one looks in those supply boxes. Always busy and a little chaotic, the changeover days, even more so in May. No one checks the personal belongings of the guests. There’s only an issue if something goes missing. Like a barmaid.
She does recall her heart battering as she got on the helicopter to leave the island. She feared someone might shout, ‘STOP! MURDERER!’ But, of course, the barmaid hadn’t been missing very long then.
Charlotte had left earlier than Beatrice, keen to be away. She went to recuperate with her mother in Bath, so Beatrice was on the helicopter by herself. She had waited until the actual day of her return ticket, so no one could suspect she’d rushed away. 379
Kit stayed behind to search. Foolish boy.
There followed one, two weeks back in London when Beatrice tried to blot it all out. Poor Primrose was left to her own devices.
Then she stopped. She gave herself a good talking-to. That woman wasn’t worth risking her health for.
She now tells herself she had only done what any good mother would do – protect her child. Kit might hate her now, but he will come to understand it was done out of love …
And how dare some barmaid tell her to keep your fucking nose out of my business. He’s her son! It is her business!
She would do anything for her boy. A parent’s job is to protect their child. She would do it again.